So, you’ve weathered the hyper-growth phase of the Business Storm Cycle we call the Tornado, suffered thru the Avalanche phase of shrinking margins, and you’re now in the consolidation phase, looking around at the devastation these storms have left behind and wondering how to begin to put things back together.
During the consolidation phase, your job as the leader will be to get your company ready for the next Tornado. The bulk of the work to make this happen will come from you and your administrative team. The rest of the company won’t be able to do it without you.
Remember, during this phase, staff is worn out; frustrated, disillusioned, and full of despair. In their eyes, it seems as though everything they worked so hard for has fallen apart. This is when leadership needs to step in and get everyone back on the same page, fueled up with new hope. Gather up all that energy that was going into the Tornado and use it now to build a new version of your company that will be better, faster, and smarter for the consolidation phase of your business’s cycle.
This is the time to ask some tough questions:
- What’s really happening now?
- What things are broken? How can I fix them?
- What still works that I need to be careful not to break?
- Who on my staff is so tired and discouraged they can no longer do their jobs well? What can I do to help them?
- Who has been moved outside of their normal roles? How are they doing in their new positions? Do they need to be moved back—or not?
The answers to these questions will help you get your profits back so that you can start again. To do that, you’re going to need to look at all three sides of the business triangle: your people, your process, and your technology. You need to be sure you involve all three if you want to achieve transformation.